Agnostics “R” Us...

@SugarMagnolia - I regard you as virtually my sole ‘audiant.’
If ever I post and get a standing ovation, I will be able to say, “The audiant rose to its foot!”

 

If God actually exists ?? I have to assume he has a sense of humour.
Let’s face it - he gave me one
- a wicked one!
Perhaps I can blame him....??

 

Glad I’m still on your radar @SugarMagnolia
- but apart from a very small handful, I’m flogging a dead horse with my art pictures and cartoons.....
I personally don’t want to just think about illness all day long.
Perhaps I’m weird.....? xx

 

I like art too - especially pictures of places I'd rather be.

 

@SugarMagnolia - beautiful x
The top picture looks like a typical Dutch beach, but then I guess all beaches look pretty much alike.
May I ask where you live SM?

 

I'm agnostic too. Never saw the reason that people would believe in a fictitious being like Santa Clause or the Easter Bunny. Just the hypocrisy of some of the things that God has done makes it very hard to believe. Philosophy in college didn't hurt either.

Maybe one day I'll have a mysterious vision that will put everything into perspective... Probably not.

 

But surely, if your inclination is that he doesn’t exist, then he hasn’t done anything?

 

By insisting on original sin, the church seeks to make us all guilty, all sinners, all in need of redemption, all frightened of it’s other blackmailing ploy, hell fire, if we resist, and keeps us putting money in the collection box.

Now I don’t recall crucifying anybody.
A thing like that would play on your mind I reckon.

The primary motivating factor towards a religious life is fear, fear of death, fear of the unknown, fear of what happens next.
I mean......just suppose it’s all true?

I personally can not love, much less worship, ‘somebody’ I cannot know, ‘somebody’ who never communicates with me, ‘somebody’ whose very existance is unknown to me.

Mind you, this whole scenario has served the church well for all these years, a real success story, and a great business model.

There is quite simply not enough evidence to go on to satisfy me.
I’m not meaning to be arrogant.
I just can’t go with it.

 

Make no mistake, I'm atheist but I'm agnostic in the sense that I need proof to believe in any sort of God. Just because of the absence of proof is the only reason I don't believe.

Going by the church's on logic it must be an all knowing god, he must be just and that he has the power to do anything. If this is the case, why is there unnecessary evil in the world? Why should other being or things suffer even though it doesn't deserve it? Sure some people may deserve it, but do animals who don't have the capacity to know?

This goes into deeper logic. What has the living being done to deserve it? When good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people? In the church, they say well, "God works in mysterious ways." And if something good happens, "It's God's will." That's archaic thinking.

I once got into a conversation with a preacher and every answer he came to me with I had a counter point. It boiled down to the fact that in order to be Christian you need faith... Blind faith. And he told me at the end that God was a selfish God that wanted all of his creations to do his will. No thanks.

No arguments could convince me to believe in God since.

Not to mention how organized religion has been used to control the masses for a very very long time. The give us your money now and we'll put in a good word for you with God or even the sick coverups going on in the high order of the Catholic chuch.

I'm just done with the hypocrisy and lack of evidence to believe other than straight up manipulation.

 

I’m with you brother, all the way.
People of the book get very upset if you dare to mention that fear is the motivator.
But we have all been indoctrinated (the biggest crime perpetrated on all humanity) since our time on earth began.
It genuinely takes courage, and a clear mind, to seek out the truth, in tha face of the threat of eternal damnation.
Much more cosy to just believe for most people.
‘But how on earth do they worship ‘somebody’ they cannot possibly know??’
I’m really pleased you logged in on here buddy.
I was beginning to think I was the only ‘Agno’ On TT.
Perhaps it’s too much to expect members to admit to agnosticism when we all suffer, and all want to be cured?
As for the church’s insistence that we should all read our bibles to gain enlightenment - well that represents self indoctrination to top up the existing damage.
If in fact there is a god, even the most illiterate should be able to experience ‘him/her.’

 

It's true. Why should we be afraid of the afterlife? Sure you've got a set of moral codes that you live by, but I don't believe they are necessarily religious. Living to help others is inherently human, IMO.

Damn straight. Truth above all.

I'm glad to see someone else who understands too! Nice to meet ya.

This place is actually far more diverse than I expected. But if they want to believe, they have that choice too.

 

@Jazzer
I'm on the east coast of the USA so I've been to the beach many times. But of course where I used to go is the public beach where it's noisy and crowded and nothing like these pictures.

 

I was raised Catholic but my parents have never been particularly religious. I never heard of people being threatened with eternal damnation and other negative stuff until I was an adult and heard of other people's experiences. As a child, Catholic school meant learning about the sacraments and participating in rituals that were, at their worst, boring.

My atheism wasn't the result of bad experiences with my religion. It was the result of religious ideas just not adding up. I wanted there to be a God, so I was eager to learn the proof that God existed. But no one had any proof to give me. When I was older, I looked for it myself: Anselm and the ontological argument - nope. Aquinas and the cosmological argument - nope again. The teleological argument - a theist favorite - that doesn't work either.

But it wasn't very distressing at the time. I was a healthy young woman with fun ways to spend my time. But later, when life became more difficult, religion seemed like something that could help. After all, lots of people deal with suffering by turning to religion. I looked to the religions of the east. They weren't monotheistic and some of them weren't even theistic, but they all involved belief in the supernatural. Obviously, since belief in the supernatural is one of the defining features of religion, of spirituality I should say, because this is as true of unstructured belief systems as it is of structured ones.

I've read Richard Dawkins and he is apparently completely happy in a purely material universe with nothing supernatural at all - no gods, no spirits, no souls, no afterlife. But I'm not happy about this. If I could make myself believe in religion, I would. But I can't make myself believe in something that flies in the face of reason, logic, and science.

You said fear is the motivator. It is - in more ways than one. In addition to the way you mean, there's this other, more existential way: fear that life is nothing more than the natural processes that science describes, nothing more than enzymes and neurotransmitters. This fear motivates me to be religious, but my inability to believe in the supernatural makes belief impossible.

 

My last post was serious, so here's one of kitty cats having tea. For balance.

 

I found your post to be very interesting SM.
I understand from 18 years of Sunday school and church (Salvation Army) that god is all knowing, all powerful, all loving, all everything etc...

My mother was mentally ill, totally depressed every day of her life, daughter of the local prostitute, brought up by her grandmother.
She had nothing to give me.
No bonding. I lived in isolation - pure hell on earth. I could find no source of love.
I always prayed quite simply for god’s presence, to help me to feel ‘loveable.’
Loving arms to hold me together.
Nothing ever happened - nothing ever changed.
I was lost and alone until my own study (reading child psychology) and my psychotherapy answered my questions, and gave me understanding.

Now, if god was a reality, all knowing, all loving, all powerful, he would have come and cared for a crushed child?

If he exists, of course which I doubt, he is not interactive.

Christianity to me is quite simply, a church, a congregation, and a history book, added to, re-edited by numerous people, and of dubious origin; and I am not prepared to accept the blackmailing threats and believe through fear.

Do I make any sense to you SM?

PS - have you seen any of the YouTube interviews and debates of Christopher Hitchens?

 

I went to Sunday school every week growing up with my sisters and brother and my parents were Sunday school teachers .
As a teenager went bible classes and we sang songs around care homes and I played my guitar and chatted to the elderly about their lives growing up.

I now just believe good is love and bringing the best out of eachother..
I still think we evolved from Apes but I hope heaven exists and we live on in spirit ...I know I have my own guardian angels in heaven and will see them again one day.
love glynis

 

100% glynis - ‘Love - kindness - caring. xxx”

- what we spend our time doing on here
on a daily basis xx

 

@Jazzer
That's a big theological problem for a little child to deal with. I confronted it mostly philosophically, but you confronted it in the core of your being. Theodicy - how to reconcile God's benevolence with the existence of evil. Just like the so-called proofs of God's existence, the solutions to the problem of evil all fail.

Philosophy aside, one could ask, how can you love a god who doesn't care for a crushed child? There are answers of course, but they all sound cruel. So you do make sense.

I haven't seen Christopher Hitchens's debates. I've seen some talks by Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins, though those were mainly about creationism vs. evolution - a related but not identical topic. I went through a period of being fascinated by the New Atheism, but it left me flat after a little while. I didn't need to rebel against religion because no one had ever pushed it on me, so I was more interested in an ideology that could be a substitute for religion, and the New Atheism really didn't provide that.

 

First of all, I would urge you to seek out Christopher Hitchens - maybe start with the debate with his brother, Peter Hitchens, on whether god exists.
CH has a brilliant sharp mind, allied to a vicious wit - which his brother - a believer - simply cannot counter.
Great fun - if you are an agnostic.

Another great debate is:
“Is the Catholic Church a force for good or evil.”
(Both titles are from memory, so I hope they are accurate - but you will find them by that.)

But I agree with you.
We seem to need a spiritual home, but where is it?
All I have found to believe in is the unselfish love of truly good people.

 

A debate between brothers sounds fun. I'll check that out.

I do tend to forget about "the unselfish love of truly good people." I'm a bit of a misanthrope. I've always been uncomfortable in social situations so I never made any friends. I've always felt like an outsider. My misanthropy is probably more of a reaction to feeling ostracized than an actual part of my nature.

 

Hi SM - I will mention to you that I had a devestatingly isolated childhood as my mother was desperately mentally ill with chronic depression.
No bonding meant that as a young adult I sought psychotherapy, which helped me so much.

From being withdrawn and schizoid, I changed into somebody who seeks out friendships.

Very sad that you feel ostracised.
You always seem very supportive of me, which I truly appreciate.
Dave x
Jazzer